Camping and camels

Hello and welcome back to Riyadh where it’s another day of sun – although the mornings are much fresher and the evenings cooler, with daytime temperatures only reaching 22 degrees…#literallyfreezing lolz!

This will be the last blog of 2021 and it’s a bumper photo edition from a recent camping trip and a day spent with some supermodel camels at the annual King Abdulaziz Camel Festival.

Our camping trip was to an area called Sa’ad about two hours east of Riyadh in some beautiful red sand dunes. We had a fabulous time, saw the sunset and the full moon rise – and it even rained a little bit overnight. It was quite something to be woken up by raindrops hitting the canvas in the desert.

Many thanks to the Riyadh Rovers and our friends Freddie and Stephen for bringing us a along and sharing their adventure with us :0)

I also recently spent a day at the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival – the world’s largest camel festival! Camels are big business here with prizes worth $40million. They are judged on their looks ie their proportions, markings, size of the hump, condition of their coat etc. There has been some well publicized controversy this year about camels being disqualified for receiving botox to make their lips bigger – but there was no mention of that the day we went.

The festival runs for a month and a half every year a couple of hours north of Riyadh, covering an area of 32sq Kms. 33,000 camels take part in the annual cultural, economic, sports and entertainment festival where they are judged on their looks in different categories. There are some race days, just not on the day we were there.

The main area has a show ground with stands and a VIP area. Adjacent is a pop up village offering a laundry, bank, butchers, grocery store, hardware shop etc providing services for all the people who are part of the festival and camp there along with the camels for the duration. There’s also a large area offering desert tents for rent by visitors, and of course spread out are the camel camps, with herds who travelled from all over the Middle East to take part.

The day we went was competition day for herds of black camels. A herd is up to 80 camels, all female + calves and one male. They are judged on how they look as a herd and they are paraded up and down in front of a panel of judges headed by one white camel who is ornately adorned. There were 10 herds, so 800 black camels in total, on show – and they were amazing to see. The camels really are like supermodels and they are treated as VIPs with crowds in the stands singing to welcome them.

The Saudis running the event were incredibly welcoming. They really wanted us to have a good time and nothing was too much to help us get our photos and make sure we had a good day. We were hosted in the VIP area and offered qahwa and dates on arrival. We were also given special access to the camels who take part in the opening and closing caravan parade:

Then we spent some time wandering along the Al_Dahna Street Souk where Bedouins have a roadside camp selling food, qahwa (Arabic coffee), chai (tea), freshly made bread and anything and everything you could need for your camel or camping…

It was a really fabulous day. I went with Haya Tours (you can find them on Instagram) run by the indefatigable Salwa – a one woman powerhouse. People at the festival were so friendly and helpful and other Saudi visitors couldn’t believe this group of tourists in their midst – they were very keen to photograph and film us with car loads slowing down so they could shout ‘Welcome to Saudi Arabia’. The Saudi women weren’t keen to be photographed, but they also wanted to wave and say hello.

And that brings us to the end for another year of Our Big Arabian Adventure. It’s been eventful!

Festive greetings to you all and wishes for a healthy, safe and better 2022, and I’ll see you back here in January,

Anne :0)